Paula Dunlop






Beaded Assemblages 1 and 2
2013
Glass beads, thread, second-hand t-shirts, calico
29cm x 40cm (framed)
Bead 'drawings' that follow the colours, shapes and designs found on second-hand garments. Corporate logos, children's characters, print designs -- all pulled out, flipped, and abstracted through chance cutting -- are reassembled onto calico and filled with lines of beading.
Exhibited at Artisan, Brisbane in 2013 as part of 'Push/Pull', an exhibition of contemporary needlework.


Foot Piece
(with Madeleine King)
2010
Graphite on Paper
35cm x 50cm (framed)
Commissioned for an exhibition at the Brisbane City Council Library, inspired by the life and work of fashion pattern-maker and publisher Enid Gilchrist, curated by Mark Neighbour.
A stencil taken from one of Gilchrist’s patterns for baby clothes is dropped repeatedly from on high and filled with the strokes of a graphite pencil.









Wearer/maker/wearer
2007-2011
Objects and garments, dimensions variable
Photographs by Paula Dunlop, Damian Dunlop, and the participants
Produced as part of a PhD project, Wearer/maker/wearer is an interrogation of my own love for making and the particular circumstances of my historical, geographical and socio-cultural positioning. It allowed me to examine the bearing of location on how I make: for example, my place in the histories and practices of fashion-making, the limits and possibilities of the tools and materials I had access to, and the friendships that enrich and sustain my living. In short, it became a way for me to explore, be mindful of, and express gratitude for, the circumstances of my location in the world.



Exhibition view, Wearer/maker/wearer
2009
QUT Art Museum, Brisbane

Cooperative Fashion 1 and 2
(with Madeleine King)
2008
Time-lapse video
“A successful or productive design/creative process is often assumed to be one that follows an efficient or direct path—either from the inspiration to the product, or from the creative problem to the solution.
But sometimes having an idea, planning the outcome and then translating the idea into a finished object of design or art isn't quite so straightforward, direct or simple.
Indeed, we feel that most design and art (or at least, the stuff untouched by the carefully rationalised and streamlined processes of commercial manufacture) is created via a multitude of indirect, exploratory and sometimes rambling paths between problem and solution, or inspiration and product. And, of course, it often needn't start with a sketch or even an inspired idea.
As practitioners we are both heartened and intimidated to know that there is never a single solution and scarcely even a single problem. What excites us about the creative process is that the design/art object is never a lone outcome—rather, the creative process produces a multitude of constructive outcomes, including the knowledge and enjoyment of the process itself.
We're interested in processes that aren't necessarily efficient, rationalised or elegant. The processes we enjoy and find creatively sustaining can be irrational, uncontrolled and even arbitrary—processes that open up as many problems as they do solutions."



Making Response 1-6
2008
Digital print and mixed media on calico
90cm x 90cm
Six large works on calico, created through collage and the re-working of past works—experiments aimed toward locating and harnessing a sensibility for design-through-making. They form part of an ongoing investigation into the tension between process and product within improvised making practices




Chance and Bricolage garments
2008
Organic cotton and reclaimed fabrics
(Exhibition view, How You Make It, Craft Victoria, Melbourne)








Chance and Bricolage garments
2006
Organic cotton and reclaimed fabrics
A collection of garments developed alongside research into chance, bricolage and improvisation.
Experimentation with different procedures—lottery pattern selection, randomised creation of shapes through blindfolded cutting, re-making garments donated by friends—were deployed to seek a way toward an experientially interesting and creatively sustaining design process. An aversion to sketching or planning a decisive end product lead to a material-lead process of draping chance-generated shapes onto the dress form.



Banners
2006
Digital print and mixed media on paper
(Exhibition view, Powerhouse Brisbane)
Scaled-up digital prints of collages created from found images, handwritten notes, and dressmaker's pattern blocks.




Star Boxes
2000
Galvanised beads, cotton muslin, timber
Each box measures 25cm x 25cm, with variable heights
A modular floor piece. The embroidered lines of beads are impressions of time-lapse star trail images taken by a photographer-friend, Mark Straker.


Star Trails
2000
Cotton thread, cotton canvas, timber
62cm x 113cm x 4cm
Embroidered lines of cotton thread follow the time-lapse imagery of star trails taken by a photographer-friend, Mark Straker.



Insides
2000
oil, acrylic, and gel medium on canvas
diptych, 150cm x 150cm and 150cm x 220cm
The pulse of time. Piped lines of gel medium applied to the surface while listening to breath and heartbeat.